EDuke32 hub maps

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Sang

Well that worked. Pretty cool. I guess it would be pretty silly to post criticism because it's a prototype (I guess) but I suppose it can't hurt: Map changes are a bit abrupt.. and when you destroy a sprite in one map, it'll still show up in the next. Obvious issues but hey

Still it'll prove handy in the future.

That's not a bug. Sprites in different maps are....sprites in different maps. Sprites that can be destroyed should not be in plain view of a sector that transports the player to another map. It was useful to have them that way for debugging, but no mapper with any sense would place the sprites that way in a serious map.

[HellFire]

Thats is great, Thanks DT! Ill surely use this in my mod. (you will have the propper credits dont worry)

[Sang]

I didn't say it was a bug but just a piece of criticism. Would it not be possible at all to work some CON coding on it to avoid that "problem"?

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Sang

I didn't say it was a bug but just a piece of criticism. Would it not be possible at all to work some CON coding on it to avoid that "problem"?

The game doesn't know which sprites in one map are supposed to be "the same sprites" as ones in a different map. So all the sprites would have to be tagged somehow so that my code could tell that they were supposed to be counterparts. Then, when the player moves from one map to another, the information about the status of all the counterpart sprites somehow has to be transferred and then the sprites in the next map have to be changed, moved or deleted accordingly. That single feature -- which is really unnecessary, since the transition points can be in dark alleys or hallways -- is harder to deal with than the entire existing mod. The only reason you think you want it is because of the way the demo maps are designed.

[Sang]

Fair enough.

[darkcaleb51]

If it's possible that the loading screen needs to be different everytime it loads a new location like in half life

[Dr. Kylstien]

Originally Posted by darkcaleb51

If it's possible that the loading screen needs to be different everytime it loads a new location like in half life

If you're willing to code it, it can be done.

[hightreason]

hmm, so say these sprites were tagged - would that mean that if you tagged 2 the same in different maps, doing something (e.g. Breaking) 1 would affect the other.

By the way, i like this idea.

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by DeeperThought

About six months ago (shortly after this thread was started) I made a mod which implements the EDuke32 map caching feature. I didn't release it until now because it didn't seem very urgent. Well, it still doesn't, but last night I felt like putting some finishing touches on it and now I'm releasing it.

Using this little mod, you can make maps that connect to each other like in the Half Life series, or you can make an old-school style hub system like in Hexen. Just extract the attached stuff and drop it into your EDuke32 directory. The only thing it really needs to make it work is the EDUKE.CON, but it also includes some simple test maps and the documentation. The effect is simple to make in mapster and only requires using some SE's with special tags. This mod is intended for mappers and modders; casual players will find nothing of interest here, since the included maps (by Gambini) have no gameplay.

This is not part of Duke Plus, it is a standalone mod. It can pretty easily be integrated into other mods, though. Modders are welcome to do so providing that they give credit.

Attachment 10431

I'm bumping this for the benefit of any mappers out there who tend to run out of walls. I can guarantee you that the wall limit of 16384 is not going to be raised (at least not any time soon). There are some good reasons for this which I won't go into.

Now, I don't expect that someone with a nearly finished map is going to want to split it up at this point, but if you start a map in the future you may want to consider the map caching feature.

TerminX added this capability to EDuke32 because some people have said they wanted it over the years. I made this simple little mod that allows mappers to easily use the feature because I thought people wanted it. But no one is using it or gives a shit.

So I hope you all do understand why programmers are sometimes reluctant to add new features like this.

[ReaperTK]

I was actually really excited about it back in august when the thread was started. But since there weren't any examples of how it worked or anything about it in the wiki, I lost interest. Thanks for the demo. I'm definitely going to use it.

[Nimoy]

I appreciate your work, DeeperThought. But I would also take into account there are only about 2 or 3 real mods under construction.

[Lord Misfit]

I suppose I should mention I have ported that code to NR, but as many have said, there's not been enough general use of it by others for me to get a good idea of how to use the code extensively beyond what is already there, not to mention the method is giving me some external troubles with gamewide tallies where reentering a level causes tallies that should've been set one time only on the maps first load to set again, throwing off the tally from what it should be each time the map is reentered, not to mention somewhat uncommon glitches where I enter a map permanently shrunken for some reason.

It's as some said, there's not yet enough examples of it or people using it yet. :\

[DeeperThought]

Originally Posted by Lord Misfit

not to mention the method is giving me some external troubles with gamewide tallies where reentering a level causes tallies that should've been set one time only on the maps first load to set again, throwing off the tally from what it should be each time the map is reentered, not to mention somewhat uncommon glitches where I enter a map permanently shrunken for some reason.

But you're talking about difficulties incorporating the code into your own mod, which already has a ton of stuff. AFAIK, it works fine as is.